Targeted therapeutic delivery means are particularly important where the toxicity of a drug is an issue. Specific therapeutic delivery methods potentially serve to minimize toxic side effects, lower the required dosage amounts, and decrease costs for the patient. The present invention is directed to addressing these and/or other important needs in the area of drug and therapeutic delivery.
Rapid advances in the fields of pharmaceutics, genetic engineering and biotechnology have led to the development of an increasing number of drugs and therapeutic agents. The development of methods for administering these new pharmaceutical agents is thus becoming increasingly important.
Many drugs and therapeutic agents have relatively short half-lives, requiring frequent administration to achieve efficacious levels. To increase patient convenience and to improve efficacy, controlled release compositions of drugs and therapeutic agents are highly desirable. Despite the advances provided by the available polymers and hydrogels, the delivery of a drug or therapeutic agent to a patient has largely been systemic and rapid, in some cases not allowing the desired result to be achieved. Therefore, there is a need in the art for means for the localized delivery of a drug or therapeutic agent to a subject, particularly in a controlled-release manner.
It is therefore an objective of the present invention to provide site-specific delivery of a drug or therapeutic agent to an animal.
It is another objective of the present invention to provide controlled release of a drug or therapeutic agent to an animal.
It is another objective of the present invention to localize a drug or therapeutic agent to a specific site in an animal.
It is still another objective of the present invention to deliver a drug or therapeutic agent to an animal for the treatment of a disease, disorder or condition.
These and other objectives will become apparent from the following description.